Document Access
The text you are currently reading is contained within a page or
document. A document can be in text form only, it may contain
images, or it might support an interactive search facility. It is also
possible to download sound over the Internet (you'll need speakers of
course). However, there is a lot of free software available in relation
to the Web.
Browsers
The software that you are running in order to read this document is defined as
a client. It is also termed as a Web browser by the WWW community
of users. Various browsers exist for various machines and operating systems.
Probably the most common browsers nowadays are NCSA Mosaic,
developed by the National Centre for Supercomputing Applications (at the
University of Illinois, USA) and Netscape Navigator from Netscape
Communications Corporation.
Mosaic was the forerunner of all browsers. Netscape was developed by a
group of developers from the original Mosaic team which went off to set up
their own company - Netscape Communications. Arguably the most popular
browser for personal computers and UNIX platforms, available in a variety
of forms and versions, it also supports the most features. Beta versions
(pre-release testing versions) of the newest browsers are available
directly from Netscape (http://www.netscape.com) and from NCSA and are
free for use by educational establishments and persons related to such an
establishment.
Servers
Web browsers retrieve documents from a source known as a server. Web
servers are machines which run the WWW server software that has been
implemented onto it. Server software is available for various machines and
operating systems. There are many WWW servers set up across the globe,
containing information on all kinds of subjects from academia to recreational.
More Information
If you want to, you can seek out more information on Web browsers and servers
in a short while via a link to CERN. However, before we let you loose there are
still a couple more documents to be read !
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